Sears Holdings Corp. said Wednesday it signed a deal that will allow it to sell up to 140 more properties to finance a $407 million contribution to the company’s pension plans.

Hoffman Estates-based Sears said it struck the deal with the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp., a federal agency that guarantees individuals’ pensions. If an insured pension plan shuts downwithout enough money to pay all benefits, the agency will cover those benefits, up to certain limits. Sears’ pension plans have about 100,000 beneficiaries.

The struggling retailer said it expects to raise the $407 million in pension contributions by selling the properties or using them to secure financing before eventually selling them over the next two years.

“This agreement with the PBGC is another positive step forward which, upon closing, will provide our company with financial flexibility while supporting our commitment to honor our obligations to the associates and retirees covered by the pension plans,” Sears CEO Edward Lampert said in a news release.

In a May interview with the Tribune, Lampert blamed the hefty pension bill, in part, for the company’s continued struggle to turn its business around. Asked why Sears hadn’t filed for bankruptcy protection, Lampert cited “human costs” and the desire to honor obligations to pension beneficiaries.

“The choice I’ve made, the choice of the company and board to honor those obligations, it’s something we took very seriously but it’s come at a tremendous cost,” he said. “It doesn’t help that you have to put $4.5 billion in a pension plan when you’re trying to deal with an industry that’s undergoing tremendous transformation and have a very large footprint that you need to maintain and update as well.”

The agreement announced Wednesday is expected to close in about three months, Sears said. After making the $407 million in pension contributions, Sears would only have to add $20 million to the pension plans for roughly the next two years. The company has paid about $4.5 billion to the pension plans since Sears and Kmart merged in 2005.

The move could mean even more store closures for the retailer, which said it had more than 400 fewer stores in operation as of Oct. 28 than it did a year ago. Last week, the retailer announced plans to close 63 more stores after the holidays.

Those closures, along with other cost-cutting steps and efforts to simplify operations, helped Sears hit its $1.25 billion cost savings goal for the year, the company said Wednesday. They also accounted for more than half the company’s 26 percent decline in revenues in the third quarter. Sears posted third-quarter revenue of $3.7 billion, down from $5 billion in the third quarter of 2016.

Sales at Sears and Kmart stores open at least a year dropped 17 percent and 13 percent, respectively, in the third quarter compared with the same period last year.

Still, Sears said it expects to lose between $525 million and $595 million in the third quarter, down from a $748 million net loss during the same period last year.